Freedom or jail for ex-Sheriff Baca? Jury could rule today

Former Los Angeles Councy Sheriff Lee Baca. Photograph by way of officer.com

Jurors are anticipated to start their first full day of deliberations Tuesday morning within the retrial of former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who’s accused of orchestrating a scheme to thwart an FBI investigation into inmate mistreatment within the jails he ran and of mendacity to the bureau.

After 9 days of testimony and greater than a dozen witnesses, attorneys delivered closing arguments Monday. U.S. District Decide Percy Anderson then instructed the panel, which retired to deliberate at 2:forty five p.m. earlier than leaving forty five minutes later with out reaching a verdict.

Jurors will deliberate every weekday from eight a.m. to three:30 p.m., however might work later if they want.

Baca’s lawyer advised jurors in his closing argument that the ex-sheriff did nothing to impede the investigation and truly needed to work alongside the FBI on the probe.

Nevertheless, a prosecutor insisted Baca was not solely responsible, however he’s particularly culpable given his years of expertise in regulation enforcement.

“That have is damning — not a constructive — whenever you speak about committing these crimes,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Liz Rhodes advised the eight- man, 4-lady jury in downtown Los Angeles as she summed up the federal government’s case.

Rhodes walked the jury by means of a timeline of the prosecution’s case, saying Baca orchestrated a conspiracy to derail the FBI probe into mistreatment of inmates at jails managed by the sheriff’s division, then lied to federal investigators about his involvement.

Baca “ran this conspiracy the identical approach he ran this division,” Rhodes stated in her summation, telling jurors the ex-sheriff appointed his prime deputy, then-Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, to supervise the scheme. On the similar time, “the sheriff was having a number of briefings as a result of he needed to know each little factor that was happening,” the prosecutor stated.

Baca, who ran the nation’s largest sheriff’s division for greater than 15 years, faces as much as 20 years behind bars if convicted of fees of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

The retired lawman was tried in December on the primary two counts, and prosecutors had deliberate a second trial on the mendacity rely. However a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked eleven-1 in favor of acquitting him, and U.S. District Decide Percy Anderson mixed all three counts within the retrial, which started Feb. 22.

The fees partly stem from a 2011 incident during which two sheriff’s investigators confronted an FBI agent within the driveway main into her condominium and falsely informed her they have been within the strategy of acquiring a warrant for her arrest. Baca denies having advance information of the unlawful try and intimidate the agent.

In his roughly three-hour remaining argument, Hochman repeatedly pinned blame for the obstruction on Tanaka, who has already been…